Around the NHL 2024-2025
- Thread starter SoupNazi
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BlueOil
"well-informed"
- Apr 28, 2010
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this is not a very good article:
it's not the fans' fault toronto has such limited postseason success and it's bad journalism to suggest it
FinPanda
Barky is good
I thought maybe Mikkola was on his way of the league at one point, but now he is even a top 4 defenseman for Finland. Crazy development. I don't blame STL letting him go though.
STL fan in MN
Registered User
- Aug 16, 2007
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You keep saying this but have yet to acknowledge that Mikkola was a pending UFA and thus was about to have the ability to sign with any team he wanted. How do you know Army didn’t see it? How do you know Army didn’t want to keep him? Army kept him as long as he could IMO.
Happy he’s doing well though. Always liked Mikkola.
I don’t think he ever looked bad enough to think he was on his way out of the league.
This board missed the boat with him big time. He was basically the defenseman version of Kyrou where every time he made a mistake or turned the puck over, people freaked out about it and bashed him for some reason. But he was always pretty solid defensively, physical, and a good skater. He was a good bottom pair d-man that could play higher up in the lineup in a pinch and really not look out of place. In the 2022 series against Minnesota for example when Leddy went down, he stepped up and played well. He got criticized way too much by posters on here.
I think this is a cop out. We’ve never been given any indication that Mikkola wanted to leave. I think it probably would have been reported if that was the case.
Why wouldn’t we have been able to sign him? He had only played 139 NHL games at that point, it’s not like his demands for his next contract could have been that outrageous. Did he just hate St. Louis so much that he wanted out? I don’t buy that at all. Again I feel like there would have been rumblings if that were the case. I think you’re just making excuses here. We usually hear about it when guys are moved because they want a change of scenery.
It’s fine to acknowledge that we went through a rough period there in terms of d-man evaluation from 2020-2023. We made a lot of bad decisions on defense and that included missing the boat on young guys like Dunn, Walman and Mikkola. It was a pattern and that is why Armstrong is getting criticized for it.
At this point I’m over it because guys like Broberg and Fowler have turned things around for us and Army is redeeming himself, but that’s my opinion on the whole ordeal.
ChicagoBlues
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- Oct 24, 2006
- 15,013
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It’s a shame he didn’t see it or didn’t value Mikkola enough, but it’s great to see a player flourish after being booted from the birthing nest.
FinPanda
Barky is good
Yeah, maybe, I really didn't follow him much, but I remember being a surprised he made the NHL and then becoming a really good NHL level defenseman. I'm very happy for him.
TheOrganist
Don't Call Him Alex
- Feb 21, 2006
- 4,391
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I haven't really been following the World Championships...has Binner been the main starter for Canada?...if so, how has he looked?
STL fan in MN
Registered User
- Aug 16, 2007
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He and MAF have been splitting starts so far but Binner seems to be getting the tougher assignments. I’d expect Binner to be the starter going forward. They play Denmark in the QFs tomorrow.
Binner has a 1.00 GAA, .947 SV% and 3-0 record in 3 games. Two shutouts against France and Slovakia and then a 5-3 win over Sweden yesterday.
ChicagoBlues
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- Oct 24, 2006
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That’s a fair perspective, but if Army valued Mikkola enough, then we would have him. In the end, though, maybe getting out of St. Louis was best for him and is probably what he wanted anyway. Maybe Army knew Mikkola would not re-sign.
ChicagoBlues
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I love it that both he and Tarasenko went to New York and then both eventually wound up winning the Cup together. Cool synchronicity.
BrokenFace
Registered User
Do you fault Berube for not giving Mikkola more minutes and opportunity or does Army get all the blame for this one?
- May 3, 2017
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We haven't exactly been great at drafting and evaluating defenseman coming up through the system over the last 15-20 years.
Defenseman drafted in the first three rounds or have made it to the NHL going back to 2006:
2006 - Erik Johnson, Jonas Junland
2007 - Ian Cole
2008 - Alex Pietrangelo
2009 - David Rundblad, Brett Ponich
2010 - Jani Hakanpaa
2011 - Joel Edmundson
2012 - Jordan Schmaltz, Colton Parayko, Petteri Lindbohm
2013 - Tommy Vannelli
2014 - Jake Walman
2015 - Vince Dunn, Niko Mikkola
2016 - None
2017 - None
2018 - Scott Perunovich, Tyler Tucker
2019 - None
2020 - Leo Loof, Matthew Kessel
2021 - None
2022 - Michael Buchinger
2023 - Theo Lindstein, Quinton Burns
2024 - Adam Jiricek, Colin Ralph, Lukas Fischer
You could make up a top 8 right now with players that have been moved out of the system for various different reasons.
Dunn-Parayko
Walman-Pietrangelo
Mikkola-Kessel
Tucker-Hakanpaa
Defenseman drafted in the first three rounds or have made it to the NHL going back to 2006:
2006 - Erik Johnson, Jonas Junland
2007 - Ian Cole
2008 - Alex Pietrangelo
2009 - David Rundblad, Brett Ponich
2010 - Jani Hakanpaa
2011 - Joel Edmundson
2012 - Jordan Schmaltz, Colton Parayko, Petteri Lindbohm
2013 - Tommy Vannelli
2014 - Jake Walman
2015 - Vince Dunn, Niko Mikkola
2016 - None
2017 - None
2018 - Scott Perunovich, Tyler Tucker
2019 - None
2020 - Leo Loof, Matthew Kessel
2021 - None
2022 - Michael Buchinger
2023 - Theo Lindstein, Quinton Burns
2024 - Adam Jiricek, Colin Ralph, Lukas Fischer
You could make up a top 8 right now with players that have been moved out of the system for various different reasons.
Dunn-Parayko
Walman-Pietrangelo
Mikkola-Kessel
Tucker-Hakanpaa
Reality Czech
Registered User
- Apr 17, 2017
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I think most players would "flourish" playing for Florida, including guys like Leddy, Faulk, Edmundson or whoever. I'm happy for Mikkola but there are players like him available every summer. You only need 6 d-men every game, can't keep everybody.
Mikkola not being here has more to do with when his contract ended and where the Blues were at than him as a player. Put him on an average team and no one would notice him.
Doesn’t that argue that they HAVE been good at drafting defensemen?
You could argue some of these guys took developmental steps forward after leaving, or maybe that would have happened if they stayed too. I don’t look at that list and feel much regret. Dunn was a casualty of the expansion draft. But Walman, Edmundson, Mikkola…they’re all decent players that are not hard to replace either. I don’t think any of those guys would move the needle much in St Louis.
ChicagoBlues
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- Oct 24, 2006
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I see a whole lot of Stanley Cup Champions and a borderline HOFer, I would say they have been pretty damn good at drafting dmen.
- May 3, 2017
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Drafting? Absolutely yes. Drafting and evaluating who to keep/who to let go? Maybe a deficiency there (keyword maybe). That was the point I was trying to make. Specifically, not retaining Cole, Edmundson, Dunn, Walman, Mikkola, etc. but not identifying Schmaltz/Perunovich as guys to cut losses on sooner. I realize there are specific circumstances with the players mentioned above that contributed to them not sticking at the NHL level with the Blues. Just wondering if there is something organizationally that is contributing to this.
Cole - don't think he was given enough time but recall friction with Hitchcock that contributed to his playing time and eventual trade
Eddy - probably needed to be traded to become the player he did over his career
Dunn - casualty of the expansion draft but they could have left Krug exposed instead. The entire decision to sign Krug has to be questioned in hindsight.
Walman - never took grasp of any opportunity he was given to stay in our lineup but has flourished in Detroit, San Jose and Edmonton
Mikkola - already been covered in this thread
Cole - turned into a solid player but was traded for Bortuzzo who also had a lot of good years here as a bottom pairing dman, Cole was never really much better than a bottom pairing dman even if a bit better than Bortuzzo, he was just what we needed at the time and was here for a long time.
Eddy - pretty much the same guy he was when he left here, we didn't miss out on much and we turned him into Faulk, who despite his recent playoff run was a vastly superior dman than Eddy ever was.
Dunn - Hindsight is 20/20 but probably should have not allowed him to be exposed in the expansion draft, great offensive dman but still has major problems defending
Walman - Again hindsight on this one, used in the Leddy trade which I was never in favor of but Leddy was a better dman at the time, Walman is better now for sure but Army was trying to keep the Cup window open so made sense to move Walman at the time
Mikkola - Pending UFA blocked by Krug, Leddy, Scandella, etc. Def would prefer him over all 3 now but what are you going to do, I don't think anyone envisioned him becoming the player he is today.
All in all, sure you can say maybe they should have done a better job at evaluating the talent on D in regards to who we should have kept but hindsight is 20/20 and pretty much all the moves made sense at the time with the exception of maybe Dunn, but most people here and elsewhere were happy to let him leave at the time.
I strongly disagree that Perunovich or Schmaltz should have been discarded sooner. Defensemen notoriously take longer to develop and to transition to the NHL game. In Perinovich’s case he was also coming back from a significant injury.
Yes, the both ended up failing to turn into what we wanted, but the opportunity they each were given was totally appropriate and didn’t cost the team much to do it.
I think the main point you’re trying to make is that they hadn’t signed these guys after their RFA rights were expiring, allowing them to continue to progress in their careers. (There are also guys who went that path and then DIDNT make it).
My comment would be: that’s just how it goes on the defensive side. Guys take longer. They burn up more of their controlled contract years developing, and sometimes the team can get the same level of play cheaper or can acquire UFA replacements just as easily.
You could make the same list and the same argument about goaltending. Forwards (wingers in particular) are the place where players have a lot better chance for earlier impact.
Finally, I’d like to go back in time and consider how early the team committed to Pietro and moved on from EJ. It was still very early in their careers. But they had no problem making the accurate assessment in both of those guys. It would have been easy to sign EJ to a long hopeful next contract and then watch him fail to be good enough to deserve it.
the only thing I think about when I think about Mikkola is that the rangers acquired him from us due to clearly needing him at atleast their playoff run, but they let him walk too.
I’m guessing he became a ranger because we weren’t going to be able to sign him and he didn’t stay a ranger because he wanted the sweet tax free dollars.
I’m guessing he became a ranger because we weren’t going to be able to sign him and he didn’t stay a ranger because he wanted the sweet tax free dollars.
This is a great point as well, they definitely made the right call to cut bait with EJ early on and IMO got a better dman out of it in Shattenkirk. EJ turned into a solid top 4 guy and had a good career but he never turned into the player everyone thought he would be, Petro did. So they definitely deserve a lot of credit for recognizing that early on.
STL fan in MN
Registered User
- Aug 16, 2007
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The trend we keep seeing over and over again is this: we seem to dislike young defensemen, and we would rather play veterans. We never took Dunn off of the leash, even though he deserved it. We barely gave Walman a chance. We didn't give Schmaltz a legit shot until his D+7 year, and then promptly traded him for Andreas Borgman (who we also did nothing with). We sent Kessel down in a year that was supposed to be a "retool" instead of letting him take his lumps.
The problem is what we can call the Krug/Faulk problem. We spend all of this capital on getting older defensemen with polished games, and pay them a bunch of money on long-term contracts. When they (predictably) start to fall off a cliff, they still have several years left on their contracts. At the same time, we have young guys maturing and ready to start taking on roles, but they're blocked because you can't cut/healthy scratch a $5+ mil player. So we waste their prime years, and then by the time we're ready to cut bait, their value has fallen and we don't get great value out of them. And so now we don't have a backlog of competent dmen, so we have to go out and sign/trade for a veteran, and the cycle continues.
The problem is what we can call the Krug/Faulk problem. We spend all of this capital on getting older defensemen with polished games, and pay them a bunch of money on long-term contracts. When they (predictably) start to fall off a cliff, they still have several years left on their contracts. At the same time, we have young guys maturing and ready to start taking on roles, but they're blocked because you can't cut/healthy scratch a $5+ mil player. So we waste their prime years, and then by the time we're ready to cut bait, their value has fallen and we don't get great value out of them. And so now we don't have a backlog of competent dmen, so we have to go out and sign/trade for a veteran, and the cycle continues.
